One upgrade that I've done...

I've done quite a few Stern Spike 2, a few Gottlieb System 3 and Williams (mostly different speakers).

This thing Thumps in my Austin Powers!
Bang 4 Buck!

I'm a bit surprised you went with a straight sub, especially with no amp add on. If you are looking for a cheap easy drop in replacement, I've had great results with the Skar Audio FSX8-4 which would allow mids and lows, for a stock cab speaker replacement. You can find them on Amazon as a two pack for around $45.

Is that one going to do better in a Bond? I'm more than happy to plop that one in. Just trying to get rid of the distortion, nothing else.
Edit: Would you recommend the 4 or the 8 Ohm version without amp.

I don't have a Bond pin, but think it would most likely sound much better than the stock setup. I have used the 4 ohm Skar speaker in several pins and personally like it (8 ohm setting with no additional amp). I do use an external sub along with the OP's ( davegauth ) recommended Kicker's for the backbox.

With a Stern James Bond Pro, with 8 ohm backbox speakers and a 4 ohm cabinet speaker, why would the factory default the cabinet speaker to 8 ohms and not 4 in settings?

More "Punch"! Most use the 8 ohm setting with 4 ohm speakers. Seems to give a higher gain output, especially at lower volumes, kind of like a "loud" button on a car stereo.

I grabbed a set of the Infinity 4032 4" speakers for the backbox and the GRS 8" for the cabinet to go in my Rush. I had done a couple sets of 5 1/4 backbox, but wanted to try the 4" to skip the plate replacement or spacer deal. These speakers turned out to just not quite be flush. I got out the dremel and cut out the thinner inner cross pattern portion of the factory 4" speaker plate. This allowed the speaker to be mounted to the plate, but the tweeter still hit the honeycomb part when installed. I ended up using washers between the plate and lcd/speaker panel. With the foam in place you can just make out the tweeter.

Sound overall is much improved. I will probably tweak the EQ settings some more. Right now all are set at 8 ohm.

For a JB that I just plan to swap the cab and backbox speakers would a midrange like the Skar FSX8-4 8" be better suited vs a lower range option like the JBL or another 8" sub? Bond isn't rockin and rolling so I wonder what is best to pair with kickers in backbox.

Also davegauth do you think some type of acoustic foam, like melamine panels inside the cabinet might help with the issues you mentioned from all 3 speakers effectively sharing one big box? Not sure if this is would help in any discernible way or is just a waste. Just thinking out loud as a couple people have mentioned the backbox and cabinet speakers not playing nice together.

also, still torn on whether to go for 4" kickers for simplicity's sake and ease of install or if 5.25" are worth the hassle and additional cost when its just JB soundtrack

I'm using the Kicker DSC40 speakers for my backbox (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BLVF3GW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title). For my subwoofer, I'm using a Blaupunkt 8-Inch sub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MA627P4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title).

I have both the backbox and cabinet speakers set to 4-ohm and each is equalized separately as shown above in davegauth 's post. I think it sounds great, far superior to the paper OEM speakers.

I made a cheat sheet of options to try to summarize ideas for any newcomers, anyone who wishes to edit it further, go for it! I haven’t updated in a few months.

http://bit.ly/sternaudio

Apparently not, and I'm too busy these days to learn 3D modeling from scratch. But I discovered that those Dual 6.5s would drop right into my Rick and Morty on the LED enhanced spacers already there, and the original, perfectly decent 5.25s from R&M would then fit into Rush once I printed some 5.25 to 4.5 adapter spacers.

Which I have done, and now both games have upgraded speakers for a total cost of $7.50 and some filament! And, bonus: the Duals have a nice shiny tweeter for the LEDs to reflect off of.

Furthermore, I still have another pair of the Duals (it was a four pack, open but unused for $15) I can use in the Rush if I ever find (or get around to making) spacers as originally planned. Life is good!

I'm wanting to upgrade my 4" 4 ohm speakers in the following games, Transformers LE, Ghostbusters LE, Game Of Thrones LE and Star Trek LE, i would like to replace them with Infinity 4032cfx 4" speakers which are 3 ohm, will the factory stern sound board/amp be able to handle these speakers and not have any issues?
cheers
Trevor

robin - can you mark this as a key post, please?

I'm just starting to wade into this topic and prentice nails everything.

They aren't quite flush. The tweeter protrudes just a small bit. Your options would be spacer (or light kit which would include one), or remove the grill. Otherwise, I don't see why they wouldn't work on the spike/sam machines you mentioned. They sound pretty good on my Rush.

Just a heads up, the Fosi BT30D amp mentioned throughout this thread is currently on sale on Amazon for $71.99

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K7NJ4QN

Bump to the top for everyone looking for this

NM, found my answer

I have a question for the experts on this thread…
I harvested an amplifier from an old yamaha combo cd/ ipod dock/ radio tuner unit that actually had speaker outputs on it. The cd and ipod didn’t work, but the radio did so I know the amp and speakers do… and sound pretty good.
I would like to try using the amp in a pin, and if it wires up easily enough I will buy better speakers for it to power.
Just wondering how to figure out what wires are for input to the amp, and how I could control volume? Is this amp even a viable option?

226CE6D5-C5F1-4EE7-B014-480C303D46AF (resized).jpeg

CB222CBC-B81F-4EAF-88EE-0E30E4C0F648 (resized).jpeg

D2301B76-437F-4BEA-AC67-B608C117287C (resized).jpeg

You need to get a hold of the schematics of this board. Otherwise it will be rather difficult to figure out what is what, aside from experimenting and identifying from the connector silkscreen.

At a minimum, please provide a close up picture of each connector, with the labels clearly visible so we can try to figure out from there what is what

I will post better pictures soon! Thanks for the reply.

I just installed a Pinball Life cabinet woofer 3000 in a GZ-Premium. I have done the cabinet upgrade for BOSS and other 8-inch woofers a bunch of times on other machines, and always end up fiddling with settings to get it sounding the best. I decided to just buy PBL since I had an order being placed anyway and the BOSS CXX8 favorites have risen in price over the past year to the same level. I noticed that PBL includes a suggested settings for their 8-inch 3000 unit and wanted to share with other DIY folks:

Settings > Utilities > VOL

Cabinet Speaker = 4ohms
Cabinet Bass Freq = 125hz
Cabinet Bass Gain = +7.875
Cabinet Treble Freq = Disabled
Cabinet Treble Gain = -12db
Fade = -6

I used the above and it sounds pretty good on GZ Gamecode 1.04, but these settings are NOT game-specific.

Anyone have specific suggestions for upgrading a wpc-95 (Cirqus Voltaire)? Have one slated for my next restore project, think I may put a pin sound board in.

Be advised that the Pinsound on CV will sound somewhat better mainly due to better speakers, but they do not appear to have remastered the audio itself. They have simply extracted and then converted the original sounds from Mono to Stereo, and created the backbox/cabinet separation. The sound pack is the same as the original machine sounds. That means you may not get the dramatic update to sound in CV you were hoping for. Any of the speaker upgrade kits or the DIY approach outlined by Tony Dziedic years ago will likely yield similiar results... for half the price (or less).

Ok so I have better pictures now. Amp is harvested from a yamaha crx330….
Manual is here
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/749407/Yamaha-Crx-330.html

I made a crude drawing listing what it says on the board for each wire.
I would love to hook this up on a pin if anyone knows how and could help me…
182B20B3-0340-4D1B-AA19-7EBA895FC70B (resized).jpeg6090D446-4DAD-4803-AB5A-6230E7921DF6 (resized).jpeg746BB764-A450-4616-AF8F-1F42EE882502 (resized).jpeg

772A95ED-D4F1-481A-BCE7-477C849002B6 (resized).jpeg

New to the thread - but have modded and upgraded many modern DMD/Spike based games, along with Lebowski. It's pretty clear the Lebowski songs and callouts are much higher bitrate and quality that the super compressed / lower resolution Spike 2 files. I have a FF Prem on the way, and of course top of mind is improving sound quality. Speakers and amps make it loud, but don't improve the sound files themselves (obviously.). I don't expect PinBrowser to allow larger files to be swapped in (does it?) - or how can we root-cause improve the actual quality of the sound files Stern is calling in the code? The speakers and amps are easy after that!

Thanks!

Can you point me towards that?

http://www.dziedzic.us/wpc_speaker_replacement.html

It’s a long read with detailed instructions, but totally worth it.

I doubt PinBrowser will help but I don't know. I love the Jurassic Park alternate audio package (assembled by a musician), but the John Williams audio tracks are still compressed and lackluster in the high frequency range. I have an external amp in my JP and have compared the theme song back-to-back between the Spike audio source and my iPhone audio source and the iPhone source is much clearer. For lots of music, it probably doesn't matter, but for full orchestra it makes a big difference.

I have been following the thread intently, and decided to try the amp route on my GZ Premium. All wired up, output using a Pinnovators adapter, with a Fosi amp. My issue is when I start the pin. As the amp and the game start, I get the usual pop of the speakers, but this happens 5-6 times during the startup, with some of them being rapid fire and loud "pop, pop, pop". As my other pins start without an amp, you maybe get 1 quieter pop, not several like this. Even my TNA with an amp doesn't go to this extreme.

I added a ground loop isolator adapter, but no change. I also (via smart plugs) played with powering the amp 20 seconds before the game starts. And 50% of the time it does it, and other times not.

Any ideas?

Replaced the Lepai LP-168HA amps I've been running in my homebrew cabs with ZK-TB21 amps. Based on TPA3116D2 chips, sold under a few brands such as Fosi and Wuzhi. The difference is night and day, it's able to actually drive the subwoofer at a decent volume without clipping. Did not upgrade the power supply. Only complaint is no way to disable the bluetooth. There are other amps based on this chip but I couldn't find one with tone controls that did not have BT.

Found a WillisonAudioLabs video where the amp dyno'd at 7 watts on the sub channel before clipping.

These things have been around for years and the design flaws were never corrected. I don't know why Parts Express sells this garbage. I don't know why Spooky uses these amps in their games, especially TNA where the soundtrack got a lot of attention. They could do so much better with any of the pcb-only options.

If you are building a homebrew pinball game do not use a Lepai LP-168HA, you are wasting your time.

Hopefully that's enough keywords to show up in google search results, lol.

I just did the exact same thing; I replaced the Lepai LP-168HA amp in my Halloween CE with a ZK-TB21 amp. Haven't had a chance to test it yet but really looking forward to hearing some needed improvement, especially with better control of the subwoofer level.

A downside to be aware of with the TPA3116D2 based amps is the unsecured bluetooth which takes priority over the line input. Anybody with a phone within range can connect to it, and I've had the sound drop a couple times mid game because of that. And if you want to stream music over your pinball speakers it can be confusing when you have several of these amps because they all have the same name.

Who's actually tried the "Boom Boom" from PBL here? I was ordering something else and noticed it, then saw it came with a mounting adapter and even a molex connector already wired...Hell, for $45 bucks and made easy enough for a monkey to install in two minutes, I'll give it a whirl. Curious if anyone had an opinion since I didn't really find it mentioned on a thread search. Seems like a stupid good deal even if it's halfway decent.

I just installed the Boom3K in my GZ-Premium. Works as stated. Comes with the hole adapter ring, and yes, it even has the molex connector already to be plugged in. Good hefty magnet, and it comes with some reocmmended SETTINGS adjustments when installing it in a Stern. Sounds great and I can almost feel the lower-end sounds in the cabinet, but I also added a shaker as well, so lots to 'feel' in GZ these days!

I didn’t realize the mounting ring and molex were included. That makes it a great value (although I’ve never heard one).

Yeah, I've been pretty happy with JBLs, but for about $20 less and an 8" ready to go I'm intrigued. Will report back what I think, I've got a couple dif JBLs and a couple goodwoods in different machines to test against. Honestly my fav thing about putting a decent woofer in the cab is feeling the bass in the cab as you play anyway.

What are your settings? Did you bump down to their suggested settings? i am finding my experience underwhelming but if you are pushing this out of your pin, I am wondering if you have it set to 8 ohm or 4 ohm? I used their suggested settings and am finding that comparative to stock this speaker seems quitter, which is odd given the clear hardware upgrade.

I used all of PBL's suggested settings EXCEPT set it to 8 OHM. The BOOM3K speaker is rated 4 OHM, but to me, GZ sounded better set at HM.

Update: found the boom underwhelming compared to a JBL stage 610. Guess you get what you pay for.

I rename the BT devices in my source device(s) to avoid that confusion.

I have a new to me GZ Premium and would like to change out the speakers (doubt I will go amp tbh) and would like to move from the 4" stock to one of the recommended 5.25" sets. I know speakerlightkits.com has the adapters to do this but they are $50 is there a cheaper option out there?

Also I will be using the myth flaming speaker lights with city scape in my game and I understand clearance can be an issue on aftermarket speakers. Can anyone share which ones are good choice when using this light kit?

TIA

Pbl sells a kit but it may be the price too, other option is 3d print your own . Been looking at this for rush… may just do the Pbl route and be done

PBL is $25 each and you need 2 so $50.

Don't have a 3D printer unfortunately

I have just now found the following

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1312-space-coast-pinball/05610-spike-2-diy-525-speaker-adapters-stern-

https://pinwoofer.com/pinwoofer-spike-2-4in-to-5-25in-pinball-backbox-speaker-mounting-ring-set/

I always get the Kenwood upgrade with speaker lights from Pinball Life .I like to keep it simple and like how the lights look . Now I am looking to upgrade the sub and was thinking of the Boom Booms .Nice to hear some feedback .I’ll be following this thread as I want to order a couple for GZ and IMDN to go along with the Kenwoods .I would like to be under $100 each so any advice would be appreciated and the Boom Booms are still in play I wouldn’t mind saving the $110 but if there’s a big difference I’d be fine spending the $200 for an upgrade ..